A mobile application service provider provides information and services to the vehicles of subscribers from a data center through a vehicle installed wireless telecommunication apparatus. Examples of types of services provided are emergency response assistance, roadside service assistance, location-based services such as turn-by-turn directions, prepaid personal calling, phone number directory lookup assistance, and points of interest lookup. These services may be offered on pre-paid or non-prepaid arrangements.
One way of offering prepaid personal calling is by offering packages of pre-paid usage. Usage for example, can be measured in units, in terms of the number of minutes of operator assistance or amount of data transfer. When the pre-paid units are completely consumed, they must be replenished for the service to continue. This will require the subscriber to contact the service provider to purchase more units of service. Although service replenishment may be performed using the vehicle installed wireless telecommunication apparatus to connect to the data center, it requires the subscriber to interact with an automated voice system or a service representative to purchase the desired pre-paid service package.
Thus, there is a significant need for a method and system for automatically replenishing mobile application services in a vehicle so that the subscriber services remain uninterrupted.